Axel Merk 2014 Dollar, Currency & Gold Outlook

Rarely has the future been so clear. Really?? A lot of money has been lost jumping on the bandwagon. Let’s do a common sense check on the greenback to gauge where risks might be lurking and where there might be profit opportunities for investors.

Nothing normal about U.S. monetary policy

During her confirmation hearings, incoming Fed Chair Janet Yellen testified that U.S. monetary policy is to revert towards more traditional monetary policy once the economy is back to normal. With due respect, in our assessment, that’s an oxymoron. In a “normal” economy capital is allocated according to the risk profile of the project under consideration. However, when the Fed actively distorts the price discovery mechanism with its QE programs, we believe it is impossible to move back to a normal economy.

Inflation promise?

The Fed has told the market in no uncertain terms that it is in no rush to raise rates. Outgoing Fed Chair Bernanke often argued one of the biggest policy mistakes during the Great Depression was to raise rates too early. Trouble is, removing stimulus might allow deflationary forces to take over once again, negating the “progress” that’s been made with cheap money. We interpret that to mean the Fed has all but promised to err on the side of inflation.

Yellen is said to favor a rules-based approach to setting policy rates. In theory, that’s laudable, except that Yellen in particular appears to prefer “rules” that heavily discount inflation indicators in favor of employment indicators.

Hawkish Fed? Do Pigs Fly?

There is a bewildering opinion shaping that a Yellen Fed will be hawkish, especially since former Bank of Israel (BoI) Governor Stanley Fischer has been nominated to become Vice Chair. Already rumors are creeping up that uber-hawk Tom Hoenig will join the team. Let’s get a few things straight:

Stan Fischer has a mixed record on the “dove-hawk” scale. After the outbreak of the financial crisis, he raised rates in Israel before any major central bank did. But he also peddled back, lowering rates again in due course. That’s not being hawkish, but pragmatic. While Israel has worked hard to play in the big league of central banks, it’s still a small country and policy action there might shed little light on what Fischer will do at the Fed. More relevant to U.S. policy is that Fischer is no friend of “transparency” at any cost, having criticized the Fed for tying Fed policy to the calendar. His former student Bernanke got the message, denying on every occasion now that the course of tapering is pre-set.

In our assessment, the real reason Janet Yellen wants Fischer to join her is to have a statesman back her up. The hawks at the Fed have increasingly been voicing their unease. Without Fischer, their gripes might have gotten a lot of attention. Should it get uncomfortable for Yellen, she counts on Fischer to have her back, taking the punch out of hawkish rhetoric. Should Fischer disagree with Yellen, we believe he’ll work things out with her behind the scenes.

The 2013 Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) may have been the most dovish on record. In 2014, we have two outspoken hawks voting again: Charles Plosser and Richard Fisher (hence Yellen asking Stanley Fischer to join). In recent days, there was even chatter that Tom Hoenig, who used to be a regional Fed President and outspoken hawk, would come back as a Fed Governor. The background here is the current FOMC lacks community banking experience; some community bankers have pushed for Hoenig’s nomination to become a Fed Governor. Unlike regional Fed Presidents, however, Fed Governors are nominated by the White House and confirmed by Congress. In our assessment, it’s unlikely an outspoken hawk will be nominated. Here’s what the 2014 FOMC looks like:

Taper? Anyone?

Let’s look across the border to get a better assessment of what all this taper talk is all about. Unlike the taper rhetoric, the practice has looked a little different. Please consider the change in central bank balance sheets across the biggest central banks:

The European Central Bank (ECB) is the only one that has not only been tapering, but mopping up liquidity. It’s not so much that the ECB wants to play the tough guy on the block, but that Eurozone central banking is more demand driven: as banks clean up their balance sheets, they return liquidity received from the central bank. In a page A1 article in the Wall Street Journal at the beginning of the year, we received praise for our controversial call a year ago suggesting the euro might be the rock star of 2013; it turns out the euro was indeed the best performing major currency last year. We believe the euro will continue to benefit from risk friendly capital returning to the Eurozone. Capital that continues to flee weaker emerging market countries (remember those hot emerging market local debt funds?) is flirting with both peripheral Eurozone debt and equity markets. And while the ECB is not happy about the strong euro, we don’t think the central bank can engineer a weaker currency. This does not suggest problems are over in the Eurozone, but this year may prove once more that lackluster growth is not an impediment to a stronger currency. We have been quoted as giving a price target of 1.50 versus the dollar in 2014.

On the chart above, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) has been the most prolific money printer over the past year (physical currency is not actually printed, but central bank action to increase the monetary base is colloquially referred to as the printing of money). It may come as no surprise that the yen was the worst performer last year amongst major currencies. The yen has drifted sideways of late as Prime Minister Abe’s policies have lost momentum. Unlike the past, however, we think Abe may aggressively double down, pursuing ever more expansionary fiscal policy. Meanwhile, the BoJ has recently ramped up its rhetoric on doing what is necessary to meet their 2% inflation goal. We don’t think it’s a surprise that Japan won the bid to host the 2020 Olympics, as the infrastructure investments needed are squarely in line with Abenomics. In that context, expect higher military expenditure as well. Our price target for the yen continues to be infinity, meaning we don’t see how the yen can survive this. That’s because the biggest threat facing Japan (the U.S. as well, by the way) is that economic growth actually materializes: good economic data might cause bonds to sell off, making it ever more difficult to finance government deficits; if so, we expect the Bank of Japan at some point to step in to lower the yield on Japanese Government bonds (JGBs); the valve, we expect, will be the currency.

One reason why few analysts had predicted the euro to outperform others is because the common currency is historically often less volatile than other major currencies. But the